Letter from the Editor

In one respect, Assam's growing clamour for secession seems to have justifiable grounds. The media coverage of the current unrest in that beleaguered state is hardly in proportion to the seriousness of the existing situation.

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AROON PURIE

February 5, 2014

ISSUE DATE: February 29, 1980

UPDATED: November 13, 2014 16:46 IST

Zia with India Today

In one respect, Assam's growing clamour for secession seems to have justifiable grounds. The media coverage of the current unrest in that beleaguered state is hardly in proportion to the seriousness of the existing situation.

Like the proverbial pebble that starts an avalanche, the five-month-old movement in Assam against illegal foreign immigrants has now engulfed the entire state and threatens to provide the necessary spark to north-east India's powder-keg of secessionism.

It certainly provided the journalistic spark for slotting it as the cover story this fortnight. For India Today's Calcutta correspondent Sumit Mitra, the assignment was painful for more reasons than the fact that he is easily identifiable as a Bengali - not exactly the most popular community in Assam today. He flew into Gauhati to be met by a wall of hostility. A local Assamese weekly, Agradoot, had intercepted a cable sent to him by India Today containing detailed briefings on his assignment.

Identifying Mitra and the magazine by name, the paper, in a moment of impassioned patriotism, had "cautioned" the Assamese people against "conspiracies" hatched by the Delhi press. "To find your name in print is always a thrill" said Mitra, but only after he was safely back in Calcutta. The assignment itself was exciting but gruelling. Mitra and photographer Pramod Pushkarna covered approximately 5,000 km by air and road in order to gauge the mood of the north-east as a whole.

For Pushkama, the assignment presented the classic photographer's dilemma, a choice between filming the breath-taking landscape of the north-east and its equally breath-taking women or facing hostile mobs shouting slogans against Delhi and squatting on railway tracks to prevent the flow of crude oil "towards India". Fortunately his professional instincts overcame his natural ones.

Few heads of state have been so partial to India Today as President Zia of Pakistan. While hordes of newsmen from the world over waited in vain for an interview. Zia invited, among a chosen few, Managing Editor Chhotu Karadia for tea and a chat. At the end of the 75-minute session, he told him: "Be my guest. My cars, planes and trains are at your disposal. Travel where you like and write what you sec."

When an aide presented him with a copy of India Today, he thumbed through it and said: "Where is the subscription card . Let me fill it in." But to the horror of the subscription department Karadia had removed the card from the copy before presenting it to the President.

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